What do you think, good folk: should the Avalanche’s next starting goalie come via free agency, or should they try to make a trade for someone younger and potentially more promising via trade?

I’m kind of torn myself how to answer that. While I’m a big proponent of adding pieces through free-agency if you can – because it doesn’t cost you “assets” from the roster, just money – I’m not really all that wild about the goalies available this year. I’m saying this with the proviso that I don’t believe Ilya Bryzgalov will be an Av.

Yes, money could change his mind, but there is a lot of talk that Breezer wants to play for a big-city Eastern team like the Flyers – a town with a lot of media attention and a good team.

I personally don’t think the Avs are going to go anywhere near some $5-6 million-per-year type of offer on any goalie on the market. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but as I see and hear it the plan is still to rebuild from within and add around the margins. Before anyone gets really upset by that, did anyone think Dwayne Roloson would help lead the Lightning into the conference finals this year? Anybody think Michael Leighton would help take the Flyers to the Cup Finals last year?

We’ve just seen too many goalies come out of nowhere the last few years, then become declared the next Big Thing, and then they’re a backup a year later. So while I’m certainly of the belief that goalies are hugely important on any team, I just don’t think you go out and give any free-agent goalie a 5-year, $25 million deal in today’s modern game unless you really, really think you’ve got a sure thing.

I might go that high for a Bryzgalov, but probably not if I’m a GM. He was terrible in the playoffs against Detroit, first off. Yes, he’s a very good goalie, but that showing against the Wings kind of soured me on him somewhat.

Tomas Vokoun? The numbers have been good, but I don’t know. Something just smells like “retread, too old” with him. He’s been in the league for a while now and while he has shown the ability to have nice saves percentages, he’s never made a major difference in his teams’ ability to even make the playoffs.

Josh Harding? The Minnesota Wild goalie missed all of last season with a knee injury. Risky.

If the open market doesn’t suffice, that leaves the trade market. Want to go for someone young and promising? It’s going to cost. Jonathan Quick or Jonathan Bernier in L.A. – wouldn’t be cheap. Cory Schneider in Vancouver? Would be even more expensive.

But here’s what I see, IF the Avs want to go for a young promising goalie: they trade a decent roster player and the No. 11 pick. That would probably be more than fair. Maybe a Galiardi and the pick for Bernier? Maybe David Jones and the pick? Maybe Kyle Quincey and the pick?

The Avs do have a young, promising goalie already in their system – Calvin Pickard. But the kid is only 19 and had a pretty decent season in Seattle last year in junior. But it’s going to be a couple years, at least, before the kid is a realistic possibility. But we’re probably talking about four or five, probably, before the kid really gets enough experience to blossom in the NHL. Goalies just take time to develop.

If the Avs want to go for Vokoun, I probably only offer a three-year, $10 million deal. Something like that. You just can’t lock yourself into really long-term deal on a 35-year-old guy with no history of real winning.

Then again, the Avs can NOT go into next season hoping Brian Elliott is going to be the answer. Peter Budaj, we know, won’t be back. They’ve got to make a move on a new goalie. Yeah, I still believe they had their guy in Craig Anderson and gave up on him too quickly. They’ve got to address his loss finally now.

OK, we all know the most glaring area of need going forward for the Burgundy and Blue is in net. Craig Anderson isn’t here to kick around anymore, and Peter Budaj and Brian Elliott have two of the highest goals-against averages in the entire NHL.

We all know the Avs are going to get a lottery pick. Based on the current standings – they’re 29th, and likely to stay there – they could get no worse than the third pick overall in June. They could well get the first or second picks by finishing 29th too.

Should the Avs put that pick on the market for top young goalie prospect? Say, a guy like Cory Schneider in Vancouver or a Jonathan Bernier in Los Angeles? If the Canucks and Kings didn’t want to part with those two, would they part with Roberto Luongo and Jonathan Quick instead?

Would the Avs rather hold on to the pick and wait a while before they blossom as players, or do they give it up for something more immediate in the area they need it most?

I don’t know, I could go either way on this. To me, if you could get Schneider with the pick, I might just do it. Luongo? Yeah he’s 32 and had some disappointing playoff runs, but he’s still Roberto Luongo. I’m sure he has a no move/no trade deal, but players almost always waive them when they know they’re not wanted.

Bernier and Quick are both good, solid young goalies who can play now. Do the Avs want to say two or three years for a Landeskog or a Larsson to start feeling comfortable in this league, and meanwhile still have nothing between the pipes? Calvin Pickard could be the man for the future, but geez he’s still a teenager. I just have to believe it’s going to be a while still.

Yeah, the Avs could use their draft pick from St. Louis – if they finish 11th or better, Avs get their pick -to trade for something good. Maybe that’s the smarter approach, than giving up a potential stud lottery guy for a goalie with still relatively little experience. But an 11th pick probably isn’t going to get a prized young goalie.

But the fact is, I don’t know if the free-agent market looks all that promising for the Avs there. Tomas Vokoun will be available, but he’s getting up there in years, has never won anything and would cost a lot of money. I’d love to sign Ilya Bryzgalov, but would he want to sign with a 29th-place team, when the money he’d get on the open market would be similar from other, better teams? I have my doubts.

I guess the best of all worlds would be to sign a Vokoun as a stop-gap goalie for 2-3 years, keep the lottery pick and develop him and others, then maybe hand over the goalie chores to Pickard. That way, the Avs don’t have to give up that huge bargaining chip in the lottery pick to get a goalie. But unless a good free agent wants to come here – and the list is small – Colorado is staring at next year’s camp where maybe, gulp, Brian Elliott is your No. 1 guy.

One of those games tonight at the Can, a fun one to see when it was said and done. Like a lot of Avalanche home games in the last 2-3 years, when attendance has been down, there was a flat atmosphere for the first period. But by the end of the night, with a stirring comeback by the home team, you’d have thought the place was full based on the noise.

Which goes to prove, and sometimes I forget this myself: Avalanche fans will get as hopped up as anyone else when they really have something to cheer about. I know you’re still all out there. But nobody can blame you for not selling out the Pepsi Center every night, with the team playing the way it has and with some other well-documented issues with how the team markets itself and the atmosphere inside the building.

(I have a suggestion on one thing for a better atmosphere in the building: please replace the jumbotron that looks like the TV I had from about 1998-2006 in my living room. It’s so old and non-HDish, you can actually see the square patterns in the screen. A big, bright HD jumbotron would add a little, you know, modernity to the building. Just a thought).

One question I had after the game tonight: why didn’t the Avs keep Mark Olver all year? All I’ve seen from the 5-10, 170-pound Olver so far is a guy who plays with heart, passion and some skill. He’s got six points in 11 games so far with the Avs, or approximately a third of what Brandon Yip has put up in 60-something games.

Turns out I actually asked Joe Sacco that very question after the game, and it’s in this video clip:

Olver, Daniel Winnik, Matt Duchene and Brian Elliott were the Avs’ best players on the night, while Paul Stastny and Erik Johnson (minus-3 each) had problems. I just don’t understand what has gone so wrong with Stastny’s game since, basically, the all-star break. He’s not creating much out there and just racking up an awful lot of minus nights like tonight. It seems like he’s skating east-west too much, not north-south.

Johnson had a horrendous turnover that led to Columbus’ second goal, a short-hander, and was on the ice for another shortie in the third period – but that wasn’t as much his fault. That fault lay at the skates of Ryan Stoa, who was too slow in getting back against Rick Nash and watched him score.

Stoa just doesn’t play with enough aggression. I watched him closely a few times tonight, and he had chances to really make good hard hits along the boards on guys, but kind of just rubbed against them and moved on.

Olver, on the other hand, is a pain in the neck guy who just always seems to show up when the puck is around the net. The Avs could have used that kind of passion more often this year. Maybe next time.

One of the bigger aspects of tonight’s game was Matt Duchene’s faceoff mastery. He won 16 of 21 draws, including that key on when the Avs had the 6-on-4 with 20 seconds. Columbus wins that draw, they flip it down the ice and there’s not enough time to mount a real attack. Instead, Duchene won it clean, with Stastny crashing the circle and shuffling it back to Johnson, who made it one positive contribution of the night by putting the puck on net, leaving a rebound for Daniel Winnik to shoot into an open net and a 4-4 game with 3.3 seconds left.
Here’s Dutchy talking about the game:

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Other items:
– Congrats to Milan Hejduk for playing in his 900th game tonight. I think he’ll be back for another year in Colorado, but it’s not a guarantee.

– Jan Hrdina Hejda just can NOT do what he did for Columbus – tossing the puck into the stands with 20 left, drawing the delay of game penalty. You just have to be much smarter with the puck in those situations, and because Hejda wasn’t, it cost big.

SAN JOSE – Was going to post some video of Brian Elliott talking after the game tonight, but the stupid hotel I’m at doesn’t have wireless internet access and so I couldn’t download the video from my phone and upload them to here. Keep in mind I’m staying about three miles from the home of Apple Computer, Inc. All I can do is use the big long ethernet cord to be able to get online at all with my laptop.

So it’ll just be a word salad instead here. I thought the Avs were going to win the game tonight, but a lucky tip by Joe Thornton said otherwise and the Burgundy and Blue went meekly in the shootout to lose again. That’s 14 out of 15 now. The B&B get Edmonton at home Saturday, the same team they got waxed by at home not long ago.

Some positive things happened for the beleaguered Avs tonight though. First, Brian Elliott looked good. Real good, I thought. I liked how fundamentally sound he looked. He doesn’t flop all over the place like Peter Budaj does, and was good and square to the puck.

Second, Erik Johnson played a terrific game. Let’s not just give the Blues the Charlie Sheen “Winning!” verdict to the Blues over that trade just yet. He scored the Avs’ only goal, and was good all over the ice. He’s going to be a solid player for the Blue for a long time. Yes, I still don’t like the fact that Kevin Shattenkirk was given up as part of the deal to get him. But Shattenkirk is never going to be the defensive player Johnson already is. That much I can feel safe in saying. I saw enough of Shatty to know his defensive liabilities.

Third, Matt Hunwick is looking like a real player finally. He was good tonight, and has been good for a few games now. He’s finally playing under control, just making simple plays and using his speed effectively.

The bad stuff: the offense looks terrible still. The Avs just don’t carry the play anymore offensively. It’s a small, easy to play against forward group right now for the Avs, and yes, the loss of Chris Stewart has something to do with that.

They can’t get to the front of the net, they can’t get easy goals and they almost never have long cycling shifts in the offensive end. Ryan Stoa is a nice kid, but he keeps playing a soft game up front for a guy with his size. David Jones is scoring some goals, but he doesn’t have that extra gear anymore because of that knee injury. He doesn’t have that dangerous speed anymore, though they usually say it takes a year or more to get the speed back after ACL surgery.

It’ll be interesting to see what the Avs do with the goaltending over the summer. I liked what I saw from Elliott tonight, but do I want to bank my future on him? Not quite yet, no. Calvin Pickard is coming through the pipeline in junior, but it’s still going to be a couple years at least.

Will they make a big run at Tomas Vokoun this summer? Maybe. But a lot of teams will probably give him a good offer. Why would he pick Colorado over other better teams?

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.

Chambers covers college and professional hockey for The Denver Post. He has written for the Post since 1994, after dumping his first 9-to-5 office job a couple years out of college. He primarily follows the University of Denver hockey team and helps cover the Avalanche.